Whenever I consider buying a new piece of consumer technology I am always concerned about how futureproof the item is. We’ve all envisaged worst case scenarios where we just set foot outside the store after buying our brand new phone or laptop only for a new version to be released the next day that surpasses our purchase. We don’t want to be locked into out of date technology and so the savvy among us usually research the market before buying to ensure what we buy will have some lasting power.
This paints a very black and white picture and it discounts a fundamental aspect of the consumer technology being released today. In an attempt to encourage consumer uptake of their products, manufacturers are now regularly building in upgrade potential into their latest devises. This upgrade potential may be hardware based such as where an additional stick of RAM is added to a personal computer or software based where a smart-phone is upgraded to the latest operating system. The same principle holds true for the latest personal vehicles in both the software and the hardware dimension.
The concept of upgrading your car is not something new to a large cohort of drivers. Whether it is installing a superior sound system or improving fuel injection to provide better performance there is already a large market established for this service. A potential exists to diversify this market so that it can provide fuel efficiency upgrades. Mild hybrid upgrades have already been developed that connect to the driveshaft of conventional vehicles and charge a small battery under braking and release this energy back under acceleration. To my knowledge so far this has only been rolled out in commercial vehicles but there is opportunity to scale this up and introduce it into the passenger vehicle market. This type of upgrade has been attempted before when the UK Government offered an incentive for drivers to convert their vehicles to LPG with a Powershift grant. To my mind upgrading to a mild hybrid should be more straightforward and involve less of a change to driver behaviour.
The electronic component of vehicles is becoming more complex with every new vehicle generation. Chic drivers now demand iPhones on wheels and like to see Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity along with a slick User Interface and lots of functionality. Whenever a chipset manufacturer releases a new CPU or GPU they will constantly release firmware and driver updates so allow users to get the most performance out of their hardware. I can envisage a future where the same is true of engines with manufacturers releasing new operation drivers to optimise the energy efficiency of their engines.
A critical question which we have as yet overlooked is the element of cost. Will these upgrades be considerable more to retrofit compared to if they were built in originally? I don’t know for certain, it is entirely possible that there may be a breakthrough in mild hybrid technology which makes retrofitting hybrid systems to conventional vehicles cheap. To be on the safe (and therefore conservative) side I would predict these upgrades would be more expensive but the same can be said about most vehicle upgrades. Indeed, by offering this service we may tap a distinct market segment that enjoy buying base vehicle models and upgrading them later on when they can afford it. Companies already offer after sale plug-in conversions to Prius owners, albeit at a high price and voiding Toyota’s warranty.
What is the most important message to take away from this discussion is we need to stop thinking about our current vehicle stock as a closed book. Opportunity exists for vehicles to be upgraded and retrofitted in both their hardware and software to improve their fuel efficiency. A vehicle that rolls off the floor court may have a 150gCO2/km rating today but that does not necessarily mean that it will be the same for its entire lifespan.
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